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User blog:Deadcoder/Deadcoder's reviews: Code: Earth and False Start
Code: Earth and False Start are separate episodes, with different teams of writers and storyboarders. Consequently, I will rate them separately. However, the episodes are so intertwined, I'm kind of forced to review them together. They will receive individual ratings from 0 to 10, with 0 being the dialog quality in "Skyland" and 10 being the art quality in "Skyland". Code: Earth Review The episode starts with another late night, with Jeremie on "Plan Alpha". Given how often Jeremie's work fails; I think that he's gone through so many failed plans, he ran out of Latin and Cyrillic characters, and broke into the Greek character set. We the viewer hope that he succeeds for two reasons: 1, he's a protagonist, and 2, if this crap keeps up, we're going to run out of simple alphabetical characters and we're going to have to start raiding the Chinese symbols in Unicode, which is going to be a pain in the ass to keep track of. Exactly 30 seconds into the episode, we are shown Yumi's butt. So we've got some hardcore fanservice for the men "and lesbians". The next scene is a recycling of that gorgeous shot from "Frontier", complete with cheesy romance music, so we've got some emotion porn for the women "and gay men". The next morning "gag", we see Yumi talking to her parents, in one of the most unrealistic scenes in the show. Her parents allow Aelita to stay there, never mind that they've never even met the girl. Also, Yumi screws up. She shouldn't have claimed that Aelita was Japanese, since the names Aelita and Lyoko are clearly not Japanese, since they both include Ls. Somehow, here parents don't notice. I can however buy that Aelita would know Japanese, since so many 90s kids know some, thanks to pirated and non-pirated anime. This scene is stupid, but I'll let it slide, since Sophie Decroisette gave the audience the vapors in the previous scene. Next, we see Ulrich and Odd in the principal's office, having foraged records to get Aelita into the school. They meet Jim, who tells them the building is off limits to students, especially at 8AM. Ulrich says they had an appointment. :Jim: "What do you think I am? And idiot?" :Odd: "Yes, but we wouldn't lie to you." Seriously though, we find out that Jim is catching on to the Lyoko Warriors hiding something. It's almost as if he was becoming immune to the RTTPs. I'm not surprised, given that this is a Sophie Decroisette script. She always seemed to hate the magic reset button the show is so infamous for using, that's why she had consequences placed on its use first thing in season 2, and even now, she's fighting back against it. +1 point for a good writer giving us continuity, despite the efforts of the studio. In one of the less annoying Ulrich moments, Ulrich tells Odd that they should be more careful, and Yumi shows up, telling them that her parents are idiots. In Jeremie's room, we find out something shocking: something Jeremie made is actually working. Now, normally, this would push my suspension of disbelief, but even the characters are surprised, so I'll let it slide. We then get a scene of Sissi being a bit of a bit ch. Aeltia is surprised and joyful that Jeremie's efforts have succeeded, and is off to the Forest sector. Jeremie then puts Aelita's materialization program disc unlabeled with a bunch of other discs. I guess Aelita is having cramps this week, and Jeremie, being a good boyfriend, covered for her in her weekly suicide attempt. He then grabs the wrong disc, as payback for being so slow getting into the towers. Recycled footage! Do a shot! Jim then finds the gang, and blocks them in the hall. The principal shows up, and points out that Jim is being an idiot. That's saying something. We then see Aelita actually running to the tower, which is only like 40 meters away. On Lyoko, Aelita encounters some bloks, and does the sane thing for once, and calls for help. Jeremie is in class. :Mrs. Hertz: "Jeremie? What's the answer?" :Jeremie: "Is it Y=mx+B ?" :Mrs. Hertz: "Why of course! We never cover anything else!" We get a phone tree scene, and the guys don't notice Jim, despite him being fat, in front of a clear window. They then escape into the Frédéric Perrin scenery porn. They take the recycled footage to the factory, and Aelita explains what's going on, never mind that Jeremie can see it on the screen. They take the filler footage to Lyoko, and meet Aelita. Thanks to the miracle of horrible labeling, a really crappy music video plays instead of Aelita's virtualization program. Jeremie explains the screwup, and leaves to get the correct disc. :Ulrich: "Odd, your actions have compromised our mission, threatened Aelita's life, wasted our time, and created a song that's even more obnoxiously repetitive than "Do the Hustle". If you want us to not push you into the digital sea, your video better be the most inappropriate music video ever since that Madonna video where she forgot to wear underwear, and they shot the video anyway because Madonna is freaking expensive." :Aelita: "Yeah! Jeopardizing my life and the mission is MY JOB BITCH!" Aelita uses the long single note of angry music, and drops Odd into the digital sea. :Yumi, with a blank face. :Ulrich: "Yumi? Yuuumiiii..." :Yumi: "sorry, I was in a fantasy world" :Aelita: "Welcome to Lyoko!" Jim gets suspicious of Jeremie running to his room, and on Lyoko, the warriors are actually competent. In the dorm, Jeremie actually tells the truth, he stopped by his room to get something he left, while Jim uses dialog that sounds suspiciously like a rape scene starting. Jeremie, being the smart one, runs. If he were the sane one, he would have eliminated the problem permanently, used that fire extinguisher to blind him, beat him to death, and used the RTTP to dispose of the body safely. Just saying. Jeremie then runs down the stairs from the creepy stalking fat guy, stumbles, and gets hurt. Luckily, there are witnesseses. On Lyoko, the remaining team members are wondering what happened to Jeremie, never mind that Aelita is in the tower, and one of them could just get devirtualized to find him. It ain't hard. Then a megatank shows up, because XANA is stupid enough to roll out the big guns after they made it to the tower. Outside the infirmary, the principal is actually intelligent for once, and fires Jim. Look, I know this is out of character, but if having a character act like an intelligent human being is OOC, I'll accept the discontinuity. On Lyoko, a megatank fires on the tower, and it shakes like a star trek set. Yumi asks what that was. Really? You have the Japanese person ask what happens when the ground is shaking? Bonus point redacted! Jim is then allowed into the infirmary, which is holding a student he was just fired for endangering, with said student unable to move a long distance. This sounds like a murder waiting to happen. :Jim: "Jeremie, I'm sorry. I don't know what ..." :Yolanda: "Jim! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, or I'll inject air into your veins with a dirty needle!" :Jeremie: "Jesus! Isn't that a little extreme?" :Yolanda: "Jeremie, stay out of this! I already had to change my name to avoid getting stalked by creepy men like him, and I won't tolerate them here!" In all seriousness, aside from the very stupid premise, this is a good scene, and we get to see a side of Jim we normally didn't see: the part of him who is a Gym teacher purely because he enjoys teaching. Jeremie explains the beginnings of the show concept, and we switch back to Lyoko. On Lyoko, the main characters are incompetently dealing with a megatank, never mind that Aelita could just long single note of angry music the megatank into the digital sea. In the 2d world, Jeremie is explaining the show premise to Jim, who acts like an idiot. Yumi and Odd are devirtualized by sheer incompetence. The dialog in this scene is so cheesy, that for the english dub, I usually watch it on mute. I unmute after the megatank is devirtualized. We then see Aelita materialized for the first time, with footage we never see again! Aelita then wakes up in the fetal position in the scanner. :Yumi: Wait, if she's being materialized for the first time, why is she wearing clothes? :Ulrich: And why is she dressed identically to Taelia? :Jeremie, blushing: no reason. :Aelia: WHO IS THIS TAELIA?! The episode ends with a cliffhanger. Code Earth Review Summary This episode has a lot of bad parts. Many pieces of it are cheesy. Jim acts like a creepy pedophile. Yumi's parents act like morons. The lyoko warriors suddenly loose all their competence after the bloks. However, in other cases, the show is better than usual. We get a good scene from Jim, who is normally a gag character. We get to see the principal act competently for once. Sophie Decroisette is forcing continuity in. The drama is good. So overall, the episode is flawed at some points, but is better than average. Overall rating: 8/10: Flawed in some spots, but a good episode to aspire to. False Start Review :Jeremie: "don't worry, it's just a history class." :Aelita: "I'd feel a lot better if it were a class on computers. I don't know anything about history." :Ulrich: "Didn't you spend a bunch of time reading about our world on the internet?" :Aelita: "Yeah, but that was mostly porn." :Jeremie facepalms :Aelita: "What? How was I supposed to know you were going to succeed at some point? Also, it's the internet. Do you expect anything better?" later, :Aelita: "Wow, you people go through wars like toilet paper." Actually, Jeremie states they should shut down the supercomputer, and Aelita, in a moment of sanity, is worried about how it will affect her, biologically and emotionally. He then holds her hand in way that doubles as a crotch shot. Umm, France? HE'S 12! They pick up Jim, as he falls asleep looking at a magazine full of shirtless muscular men. This is either a sign that Jim is gay, or he has body issues. I hope it's body issues, because after the last episode, making him the Gay character would be a really bad move. They get in the elevator, and go down to the supercomputer. Jeremie gives a lame speech, and turns the machine off. Aelita dies instantly. :Yumi: "Aelita's not well! Turn the power back on and do a shot!" :Jim: "Let's get her to a hospital!" :Jeremie: "No! Don't take the elevator!" :Jim: "Why?" :Ulrich: "It's really old, and may or may not be rigged to fall the next time a person tries to go up." :Jim: "You little bastards." :Jeremie: "You got my ankle broken, I tried to get your neck broken. Alls fair in love and war." :Odd: "Maybe Aelita was right." So aelita recovers in like 12 hours. The characters know something is amiss, so they put her in the scanner and run a diagnostic routine. Smart moves. They naturally assume it was a virus. Not smart moves. Ehh, we'll call it even. In the next scene, Jeremie takes Aelita back to Yumi's house, in an adorable montage. Aelita says that "In spite of the virus, this was still the best night of my life". We then get an unnecessary scene, followed by a shot of an active tower and an active scanner. Jim wonders what's going on, as a crappy iMovie transition moves away from the factory. It's really cheesy. In math class, Sissi has a ditsy moment, and Aelita out-technobabbles the math teacher. We find out some bad news and good news. The bad news is that XANA has figured out how to send monsters to earth. The good news? He sent the joke ones. I really have to applaud french fashion, because in one scene, Ulrich get's shot, and his shirt is merely burnt, and we later see these shots have melted holes in the wall of the factory. I have to respect that kind of durability. Also, Yumi rescues Ulrich in a reverse damsel in distress scene. Odd finds a nail gun. In the garden shed, Ulrich finds a hammer and a sickle. He knows that combo doesn't work, so he gets a chainsaw instead. Jim gets a badass moment in the scanner room. Aelita says she has to goto Lyoko. Jeremie is worried about her, but Aelita says that the tower must be deactivated, because XANA might start sending the monsters that aren't completely pathetic. Jeremie agrees, and sends Odd and Aelita to Lyoko. At school, Jim Leyroy Jenkins to rescue Yumi and Ulrich, who are surrounded. On Lyoko, Odd is useless, so Jim sends Ulrich and Yumi to the rescue. Odd is devirtualized, because he sucks. Yumi and Ulrich come to Lyoko, and Aelita is iceskating to avoid the villain. When it corners her in a cave, she encounters the Aelita Options! :0. Act suicidal and/or crazy. :1. Attack it with a long single note of angry music. :2. Have an argument with it. :3. Use Energy Fields. 0, eh, I already did that this week. 2, I already did that with Jeremie. It isn't season 3 yet, so 3 is out. 1 it is! and she long single note of angry musics a wall up. Jim gets shot, and Aelita retreats deeper into the cave. She iceskates away from the hornet, who Yumi destroys after a second shot "the first one was counter-productive". Aelita makes it to the tower, and just in times the kankrelats. They then do an RTTP. Aelita ends the episode on a sad note, saying she's still infected. As a peace offering, the other characters make up a story to cover for Jim in front of the principal. Jeremie holds the photo of him and Aelita, which survived the RTTP, because random photos sometimes survive. They walk into the theme music and the light of season 2. False Start Review Summary False Start is much more quickly paced than Code Earth, yet blends well with it. It was nice to see the 2D department get to work on some of the fight sequences, and we got to explore Aelita and Jeremie's relationship. Jim redeems himself for his actions in Code: Earth, and the show ends with a promise of more to come. My main problem is this: What happened to Jeremie's broken ankle? Usually, a person is on crutches for at least 6 weeks after that. Here, it's a couple of days. That's a major plot point ignored. Why isn't Jeremie pissed off at Jim about being a crazy stalker and getting him injured? Overall rating: 8.5/10. There's a few plot flaws, but the episode shows us a new dimension of the show; has a very novel attack of the week; and explores Aelita as a character, who like it or hate it, wasn't well developed in this season. Also, I have to respect an episode who manages to make the magic reset button depressing rather than cheesy. These two episodes were made directly after Ghost Channel, the best episode of the series. I think they were worthy successors. Ghost Channel showed us that it was possible do do a non-standard episode. This episode showed us that it was possible to change the standards. I have to applaud Sophie Decroisette and Alain Serluppus, for taking the more wandering storyline of season 1, and giving it a direction for seasons 2 and beyond. On a more serious unrelated note; I would like to thank all of my readers for enjoying my reviews. I would like to ask for a minor form of appreciation. I'm not making a Patreon account. Instead, I would like to ask all of you to, by lawful means only, set aside some money for a medical research group, the Foregen Organization: foregen.org. Foregen is working on researching regenerative medicine for victims of a specific type of non-consensual plastic surgery, that I can't mention on this blog, because of wiki content rules. However, this is a charity that is worthy of help, and I would like you all to try. In leu of donations to support Deadcoder's Reviews, I would like all of my viewers to donate some money to Foregen to aid medical research. Thank you all again for enjoying this review, and I hope it made you think about something. Category:Blog posts Category:Code: Earth Category:False Start